BJP rubbishes Raj Thackeray's digital village' allegations

Mumbai: A day after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray spoke out against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for claiming to have digitalised Harisal village, the BJP termed the allegations as rubbish and said that the MNS had shot a video of the village in October 2018 which was shown in April 2019.

The BJP also said that the ‘tour package’ would continue as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP0 chief Sharad Pawar at a hotel in Solapur had given the MNS chief the next script.

The BJP claimed that the situation had changed now. BJP leader and education minister Vinod Tawde said that Harisal now had all facilities including computers.  Refuting the allegations of the MNS chief about students not having tablets (computers), Mr Tawde said that the government had not made any promise to give a tablet to every student. The district collector had given two tablets to the teachers of the Zilla Parishad School.

Mr Thackeray also alleged that the villagers did not have an ATM card to which the BJP leader replied that the population of the village was 1,479. ATM card holders were 4380 as per the data given by the Bank of Maharashtra. This meant that nearby villagers were also having bank accounts. The ATM was being regularly used.  

The BJP clarified all the issues raised by the MNS in Solapur’s meeting.  Mr Tawde said that he had not demanded the expenditure of the MNS chief’s rally.

“I had sought information in which the candidate’s expenditure would be added,” he added.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the party’s star campaigner; the party was providing the expenses for his campaign to the chief electoral office of Maharashtra. Mr  Thackeray should answer as to which party’s star campaigner he was.

The MNS chief had demanded the expenditure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign.

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